Wielding soft power through internationalization of higher education: the cases of Malaysia and Mexico

The paper focuses on internationalization of higher education and its relation to soft power and public diplomacy. Two countries are discussed in the paper to illustrate this relation in the developing world: Mexico and Malaysia. In this paper I examine the reasons why these governments pursue south-south cooperation and north-south cooperation in both countries, unraveling the foreign policy goals that are achieved through international higher education strategies. I argue that through the strategic alliances that are forged by higher education institutions with other governments and institutions, soft power outcomes are obtained, hence becoming actors of public diplomacy. I discuss that there are many opportunities for higher education institutions when considering internationalization of higher education for soft power purposes. Nevertheless, there are challenges to overcome such as the autonomy of universities, funding and organizational change.
The themes explored in the in this paper, and that are relevant to the FAUBAI 2019 conference, are in both internationalization of research and mobility, but also target indirectly to sustainable cooperation since by unraveling the national and institutional reasons to forge strategic alliances in both Malaysia and Mexico clues are given as to how to pursue sustainable cooperation.
In this proposal, the best practices of six public and private universities of Malaysia and Mexico will be exposed. These best practices are the result of a research I conducted in both countries and that are part of my PhD studies at the University of Nottingham, England. The Universities exposed here will be: Universiti Malaya, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, and Linkokwing University for the case study of Malaysia, and Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Universidad de Guadalajara, and Instituto Tecnológico de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey for the case of Mexico.